The owner of Gregg Distributors is keeping his eye on the status of his company’s planned expansion in Athabasca.
Gary Gregg is waiting for Athabasca town council to decide whether to allow Gregg Distributors to expand their location on the riverfront. At the last meeting of council, all motions related to the decision resulted in tied votes before discussion was ultimately deferred to the next meeting.
Gregg said that when they built their Athabasca location about a decade ago, they knew the area was a direct control district, meaning that council has the final say on renovations and changes to the building.
Gregg said he accommodated the town and followed the wishes of council.
“I had a number of discussions with a number of people, with the Riverfront Design Review Committee, and with some of the councillors,” he explained. “We have made some changes to the building to give it a better streetscape to the train station.”
Gregg said they have angled the expansion in the plans to allow a better view of the train station.
“We built off the property line far enough to allow some of the existing trees there to stay,” he said. “I think we have done whatever has been asked.”
Now all that remains is for council to make their decision.
“We’d be very disappointed (if expansion is denied) but beyond that I don’t think I’d want to comment,” he said.
Gregg noted that Athabasca is a vibrant community, and he is sure people want to see it grow.
“I guess that is one of the problems with a lot of the towns in western Canada right now, most of them are dying,” he said.
“Athabasca is a vibrant community, and growth is good. It’s good for people’s property values, and growth brings new opportunities to the town.”
Gregg said the two-storey expansion is important for the future of their business.
“We just find that with the range of products that we have, and the range of products that people request, we just don’t have enough stock,” he said.
“In our business we have a 2,000-page catalogue. In Edmonton in our central distribution, we probably have more than 850,000 square feet of warehousing space that is devoted to warehousing the products we distribute to our 21 different locations.”
Gregg said the current Athabasca location is lacking in the storage space it needs. At 1,200 square feet, it’s the company’s smallest outlet.
“When people want a lot of things, we’d like to take it off the shelf and sell it to them on the spot,” he said. “So many times we end up bringing it in from Edmonton on next-day service, but that’s not the business model we like. It’s better to take it off the shelf and give it to them, and we just don’t have enough space in Athabasca.
“When we built the facility a number of years ago, it met our needs for a number of years, but our business has grown substantially.”
Gregg has also purchased the parking lot across the street to the south of his current location.
“That’s where we plan on parking our staff. As we expand on to our site, we’re going to have restricted parking there.”
Gregg said relocation within Athabasca could be a possibility for the future.
“If business is so good (that) in the future we justify a new building somewhere in town, we’ll look at that as well,” he said. “We’re happy to be there, and be part of the business community.”
